The Origins of the SMU Human Rights Program

The SMU Human Rights Education Program was created through a generous donation from the Embrey Family Foundation. During the Christmas holiday in 2005, Lauren Embrey and her two sons, Lindsay and Jeffrey, joined the Human Rights Travel tour to Poland on a 10-day tour of Holocaust sites. After the trip Lauren said she realized that human rights is not something students are taught enough about in school. She and her sister, Gayle, began talking with SMU about a way to fund human rights education for students and the SMU community in general.

In the spring of 2006 Lauren, Gayle and the Embrey Foundation generously donated one million dollars to create the SMU Human Rights Education Program. With the gift, SMU became one of only twelve universities nationwide and the only university in the South to develop such a program.

When students come to SMU, it is their job to start to be prepared to run this world. They need a global sense of awareness of what is happening to their peers around the world. It is time for them to realize that life is not a spectator sport.

There are many people in the community and students who will come to SMU who share a concern for a better world. Thanks to the Embrey Foundation we now have something in place for them to act on their passions.